We’ve reached that beautiful point of midsummer where foliage is still a verdant green and flowers are blooming yet the days are long and the sun feels especially warm. This particular combination of environmental factors makes for a perfect herbal sun tea. Plus, it’s a sweet way to get acquainted with the herbs that are growing in your area right now.
If you have access to a garden, a slow morning routine that we’ve been loving lately is simply wandering through the garden beds and plucking anything that calls your name. Once you’ve collected a few handfuls of edible blooms and leaves, it’s time to start your fresh herbal sun tea!
A Simple Method
- Toss fresh herbs (or dried herbs) into a large glass container of your choice. Half gallon mason jars work great here for bigger batches.
- Fill your container with room temperature water and put the lid on.
- Place your container on a sunny windowsill or in direct sunlight outside for 2-4 hours to let the heat of the sun infuse the herbs into your water.
- Once it’s ready, strain the liquid off.
- You can enjoy it slightly warm, pour it over ice for an iced tea vibe, or chill it for an hour or so in the fridge.
Herbs that work well in a sun tea:
- Lemon balm
- Rose petals
- Mint
- Calendula
- Red raspberry leaves
- Nettle
- Red clover
- Hibiscus
- Lemon verbena
- Linden
- Tulsi
Sun teas are an ideal way to extract demulcent herbs that are rich in mucilage, like marshmallow root and violet leaf since their polysaccharides are best extracted in cold or room temperature water. So for an internally hydrating, soothing and cooling brew, throw a few of these demulcent herbs in your jar as well!
Can the Sun Really Restructure Water?
Although the idea that structured or “sun charged” water is beneficial for human health is still up for debate in the scientific literature, it holds great importance in the Ayurvedic tradition and has for thousands of years. Here’s what we do know about it: water exposed to UV light (via sunlight) does in fact have a different chemical composition and electrical charge than water that has not been exposed to UV light, according to research (1).
Where things become debated is when you get into the various states of water. As of now, it’s common knowledge that there are 3 established states of water: liquid, solid and gas. An unproven theory that arose about 100 years ago is that there is actually a fourth state or structure of water, referred to as structured water, Exclusion Zone water, or EZ water. Dr Gerald Pollack is the pioneering scientist behind this revolutionary concept at the University of Washington. In this fourth phase of water, individual molecules are transformed into sheet-like structures that stack upon themselves, making it more of a gel-like substance, chemically. This is the kind of water that Dr. Pollack posits exists within your cells and, therefore, is preferred by your body. Now, in order to go from a randomized state of molecules to a structured state, energy is required. This can come from an electrical current OR it can come from infrared heat emitted by the sun. So, in theory, sunlight is able to restructure liquid water to an electrically charged, hexagon-structured state that our bodies can use more efficiently.
